National Centre for Geodesy (NCG), established at IIT Kanpur, India, is planning to set up a Geodetic Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) station on our campus. This VLBI station will be co-located with an International GNSS Service (IGS) station already existing at the planned site. These stations are being established primarily to improve the realizations of a precise International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) and International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), and to also determine the precise Earth Orientation Parameters (EOPs) required for relating these two frames.

A two-day workshop (National Workshop on Geodetic Applications of VLBI) coordinated by Prof Harald Schuz, GFZ, Potsdam, Germany, was organized between 3rd to 4th of March 2020, to set the ball rolling. For the development of this facility, nine working groups were designated corresponding to the various aspects of the VLBI setup, each comprising national and international experts. The efforts for the preparation of a detailed proposal are under progress.